


Was/Am/Will Be

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Crush, Bisexuality, F/F, Guilt, Healing, Knitting, Non-Linear Narrative, mentioned Amelie/Gerard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8870251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: The things they were, are, and will be.(A love story in three parts.)





	

_i_

The past is set, but it ripples forward, echoes, crystal-fragment kaleidoscope bursts, the world splintering possibilities. Every step she takes (rubber-soled shoes on cold marble, subtle heel-toe shift of weight, ears still ringing with thudding footfalls like laps around a track) Lena grounds herself, breathes deep, remembers _this, this, this_ is the present, her current time. Tick-tick-tick goes the clock, and she goes with it. The chronal accelerator hangs heavy on her chest, and the straps fit snug— no more awkward than a backpack, really, but still a weight she’s learning to bear.

(Ears still sting— that’s another reminder, another ‘now’ to bind her to the present. Double helix piercings, new, stainless steel glittering when she catches herself in mirrors, shiny windows, any reflective surface. Thinks she might get her nips pierced next.)

But she stops, pivots, turns— knees still bending one way, ankles twisting, almost slipping over herself, half-afraid she’ll break herself in two, past-present-future sliding past one another, all her changing directions like micro-accelerations caught at this one moment. Eyes caught by the lovely lady with the long hair and the golden eyes, standing with her hands neatly behind her back. Long legs, and she holds herself like a dancer, or a gymnast. Grace in repose, coiled strength. And maybe this is a new agent, maybe it’s one of their donors, maybe it’s some other big-wig that Angela or Winston are going to charm onto their side but Lena breaks her face into a sunburst smile and chirps, “Hi! Hello! Have we met?”

The other woman chuckles, and her voice (it’s like honey dripping off the tongue, is like a slug of whiskey burning down the throat, is like that first thrill of lift-off, adrenaline pumping while you sink into your seat, the engine purring and everything feels perfect, marvelous, all power and awe and limitless potential) has a French lilt, her lipstick some soft shade of plum. Tints her words juicy-sweet. “I do not believe so. I would have most certainly remembered you.” She dips her head, smiles. “Ms Oxton?”

“You’ve got the better of me, Miss…?”

“Mrs Lacroix,” the beautiful, elegant, _married_ woman says, extending her hand. The ring glints gold and diamond, bright and damning.

And Lena, forever-champion of the lost cause, forever-sucker for a pair of bright eyes and a warm voice, knows this is how the world splinters, cracks like ice beneath her feet. Married, probably straight, probably forever, impossibly out of reach (and the years between them span like canyons, impossible chasms of age and orientation and wealth and taste) and even so, Lena takes that hand. Squeezes it between her own (Mrs Lacroix’s nails filed short and smooth, the palm cool) and rather than take the proffered handshake, she dips low, brushing her lips across the back of the knuckles. Breathes deep— catches perfume, warm and subtle. Jasmine and amber, something raw and longing— and smiles. “And who are you when you’re not Mrs Lacroix?”

The woman laughs, long fingers fanning over her mouth as if to trap the sound. “Amélie.”

Lena wants to grab her hand, hold tight— sweep her away with a few witty quips, a charming smile, smile and burst and catch her heart like some butterfly-winged dream, but she has to go. Mouths mushy excuses and regrets and heart ticks up speed as she leaves for her meeting with Winston. Some more tests and examining her chronal accelerator, making sure she’s going through time in an orderly fashion, seconds minutes hours queueing up obediently.

But right now, she wishes she could live in this moment forever.

. . .

_vi_

Tracer zips across the rooftops, blinking the gaps between buildings. Running, running, momentum and motion, can’t stop, won’t stop. Not until the breath burns her lungs, not until she can outrun, outchase the weight of regret. The chronal accelerator fits her better, these days— lighter, fits snug, doesn’t even chafe. As much a part of her as her flesh and bone, weighs her to the present moment.

(Lena curls up deep inside, fetal, knees to chest, hands clasped over her shins. Can’t be Lena, can’t afford to be small and anxious right now. Only have the present moment, only have _this_ time to make things right. She can retrace all her old paths, rewind her own timeline, but so much harder to fix what’s already done. Always harder to fix someone else’s path than her own.)

Pharah’s the bait, of course— flying low, all bright metal and blue gleam against the pale sky, sun shining down like a smile from a wrathful god. Pharah flying smooth, perfect target for a sniper with patience. Tracer’s the back-up, just in case— just in case—

_No._

Ana has her own vantage point, but Lena needs to gain higher ground. Get some altitude, zip up. Always harder to go vertical than horizontal, but she needs to see this through. They all do.

Ana’s sitting with her unique sedative, a Mercy-special cooked up based on their limited data on Widowmaker, some educated guesses, blood samples left from prior missions. Pharah’s flying as bait, trusting her reflexes, her Raptora armor to protect her, if things go sour, and Mercy’s in the wings, and Tracer’s there to recapture Widowmaker, take her home—

(No, no, she’s Widowmaker now, but she was Amélie first, still _is_ Amélie, and will _be_ Amélie.)

The sun blazes hot.

. . .

_xi_

It’s cool inside the reptile house, the smell of musk and snake sitting dry and sour on the back of Lena’s tongue, but Amélie loves them. And there are jokes she could make, would make— won’t make, not this time. Not yet. Too soon, still. All sorts of comments about cold-blooded venomous creatures, but things are too new-spun and fragile.

(“They are venomous, not poisonous. A key distinction,” Amélie murmured, the first time Lena mixed the two up. “If you are a poisonous creature, that is small comfort only, since you are dead or injured when the other animal attempts to devour.” And she stretched her lips wide, her teeth gleaming, sharp and strange to see after that cold stillness of the infirmary. “If you are venomous, you will inflict equal harm on that which tries to hurt you.”)

And they will hurt Talon, yes, but not yet. Because today they are not Tracer and Widowmaker, but Lena and Amélie. Finally. As incognito as they can manage— Lena has her ‘casual’ chronal accelerator on, the sleeker lines meant for civilian wear, not combat. Even that bulk is hidden under an oversized athletic jacket, her hair shoved under a knitted cap. They can’t do anything for Amélie’s blue-tinged skin (one last stain from Talon) but a little powder, a little makeup, and at least they can pretend it’s a fashion statement.

(And even now, even with history on their skin, bodies worn with scars that have long since healed, some that have never set, some that retread history so they never existed, they consider themselves lucky.)

. . .

_ii_

“ _Araignée du matin, chagrin._ It is bad luck,” Amélie observes, crouching beside Lena as Lena scoops the spider into a paper cup.

“What, to catch a spider?” Lena asks, covering the cup with one of Winston’s business cards.

Amélie laughs, though it does not reach her eyes, her mouth tight. “No, to find a spider in the morning.”

“Eh, worse luck for it to be in this place.” Lena bounces to her feet, tipping onto her heels and catching her balance. “I figure I can just let it go in the garden. Lots of juicy bugs out there, yeah?” Okay, so no points scored for ‘compassion to all small things,’ but Lena wasn’t _trying_ to impress the very-married-and-probably-straight Amélie. Just would have been lucky coincidence if it happened. Too late, the thought crosses her mind that maybe, maybe the gorgeous lady with the shiny hair and the long legs and the lovely perfume is _scared_ of spiders. Lena casually tips the cup away from herself, carrying it on the side of her body away from Amélie.

Amélie chuckles, boots clicking as she walks beside Lena. “Is this what it means to be a hero?”

Lena’s heart quickens, bursts, rattles her ribs, sets up a steel-drum tympany that shivers down her spine and percusses all the way to her toes as she goes, “Yeah, maybe. Can’t be a hero if you start your day squishing spiders, right?”

“Even if I asked you to?” Amélie dips her words teasing, and it’s like sugar and absinthe, like a breath of cool gray dawn on a morning run. Melts and shivers all the way through Lena. “Even if I said, ‘Oh! Ms Oxton! This spider, it scares me very much.’ Would you do it?”

Lena unsticks her tongue from the roof of her mouth. Pulls her words like strings of taffy, but only manages one.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because a— it’s a bug, yeah? It’s just obeying its nature. It’s doing what it does, it’s not hurting anyone, it’s being a good spider. Killing other nasties.” She reaches the patio and up-ends the cup over the railing. Peeks over the edge, watching the long-legged beastie scuttle away. Her cheeks flush, hot and pink, but at least she can pretend it’s because of the lukewarm sun. As long as she doesn't glance sideways, doesn't trap herself in Amélie’s gaze.

Instead, she measures her words slow and even, imagines polishing them with her tongue. Like they might glitter sharp enough to outshine any wedding band.

“Why kill something when you can save it instead? Let it do a little bit of good.”

. . .

_vii_

“ _Araignée du soir, cauchemar._ You should have killed me,” Amélie says, low and broken. Her hands twist, crumpled in her lap like dead leaves. Her hair is tied back in a loose braid, and fatigue paints dark circles beneath her eyes. The blue-grey of her skin looks like glass ash against the white of the bed sheets. The bright gerberas on the table are a cruel joke, an inappropriate pop of color in this sterile ward. At least their smell is mild; Lena doesn’t have to choke down lilies and indole.

(No one would be so cruel as to bring lilies here.)

“No— no, couldn’t have done that,” Lena says, and it’s the wrong thing to say, she knows it, knew it as soon as the words spattered off her lips like cheap mustard, like a soggy chip falling from her clumsy mouth.

“It would have been so much easier. Better.” Two shallow breaths, and Amélie says, like afterthought or accusation, “I cost Ana her eye.”

And it’s lives weighed on balance, justice blind and scales tipping. Back, forth, weaving. Dizzy with indecision.

. . .

_xii_

They leave the reptile house, arm-in-arm. Amélie is tall enough that Lena walks stagger-footed, quick-stepping to make her strides match Amélie’s even as her hip bumps Amélie’s thigh, and every time Lena trips or steps on Amélie’s heel, Amélie laughs and bats her cheek against the top of Lena’s head.

“Anything else you want to see?” Lena asks, clenching the hand inside her pocket. Trying to stay warm, the vague orange heat of the day dying to a cool blue night. Zoo doesn’t close for another couple hours, but there won’t be much to do or see besides gift shops. Maybe the sky tram, but that’s hardly any fun if they can’t _see_ —

“The spiders.”

Lena’s tongue twists into a sputtering tangle. “The what now?”

“ _Araignée du soir, espoir_. It is evening, and I am no longer afraid.” Amélie’s smiles, little more than a ghost of lips and breath. “Let us see the spiders.”

Strange to think that two agents, each combat-capable but dressed down in civvies and weaponless (or as weaponless as they can be, when they still have fists and feet, when Lena has her accelerator and Amélie has her cold-bright mind and sees paths and vantages around her, a spiderweb-tangle of _possibility)_ might possibly be afraid of little spiders, but they’re not Tracer and Widowmaker, no, not tonight— they are civilians. This is one night, among many. One step closer to the future.

. . .

_iii_

“I was never military, Lena, you must understand. I was a civilian scientist.” Mei sets down her cup.

Lena reaches for it, taps it against the table before grabbing the teapot. Pours more tea into her friend’s cup, jasmine scent rising in long lines of steam. Lena prefers her tea sweet and milky, would dump in the entire sugar bowl if she could get away with it, but she’ll drink this cuppa with Mei for company’s sake, for nostalgia, for the growing realization she actually _likes_ this tea, is starting to pick up its own sweetness under the faint grassiness, the odd bitter taste of it.

“Yeah, well— you’re an inspiration, is what you are. And the years— you know, it’s just.” Lena bites the inside of her cheek, gnaws at her lip. “Most people don’t— don’t understand, you know? What it’s like to lose time. Like that.”

The living ghost and the woman frozen in time— the two of them, sitting across the table and poring over newspapers, the radio on. Every day a reminder of time, place. Everything from bitter political rivalries to stories of distant bombings. They might not be the ones making deployment decisions, but it’s still good to stay abreast of the news. Even better to remember the year, the century. Even the newest pop song on the radio helps pin this date to memory, keeps it from getting lost amidst the colored sands of time.

“Or how quickly things change,” Mei says quietly.

And isn’t that the kick in the head. People make all sorts of noises about how quickly things can change— one moment, one catastrophe. Lena remembers herself being torn apart, atom by atom, rearranged and swung like a pendulum when the teleportation matrix glitched. Dizzying, sickening, so many orbital shells stripped away, all her selves fragmented and delocalized, like so many nuclei floating in some temporal soup. That was one big moment, sure, but so much harder to pin down the smaller moments that contribute to larger change, like fistfuls of pebbles thrown into a pond, rippling and merging. At what point does _this_ imbalance lead into _this_ political tension that leverages _this_ party into power that triggers _this_ hostility and _this_ war and _this_ and _this_ and _this_ …

“We need beauty, to see a world worth fighting for.” So says a woman who keeps a ‘puppy of the month’ calendar, who forwards links and articles to stunning natural discoveries, who tugs Lena to art galleries and historic locations at every site they visit. “A place worthy of protection and preservation, for ourselves and future generations.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Lena says, and they clink their cups together.

. . .

_viii_

Lena slings her hands in her pockets, elbows tucked tight against her sides, like her ribs might blow out, away, explode from the pressure in her lungs. Visiting hours are over and she needs to give Amélie some space, or at least that’s the official wording.

Unofficially, it’s either leave or be shooed out by Angela’s angry eyebrows.

A familiar knuckle-walk echoes down the hall, heavy footfalls announcing Winston’s presence even before he says, “Hey.” As if she could have missed a gorilla outside the clinic, but all her thoughts are foggy, fuzzy. Like she’s been wrapped in gauze, cocooned in bandages. Still fragile, though not broken.

(And Amélie’s not broken— no, not really. ‘Broken’ means beyond repair. She’s _healing_. They all are.)

“I got you a smoothie,” he says, shifting his weight onto his legs, cup raised.

“Thanks.” She musters a faded smile. Her heart hangs dull and heavy, numb. Cold beads the sides of the paper cup, slick beneath her thumbs. She pops her lips over the straw, sucking up strawberry-banana sweetness. A little burst of sunshine, icy crystals melting against the roof of her mouth. Lena thought she’d felt too cold to enjoy the sweetness, but the sugar satisfies her hummingbird-heart, has her slurping loud and greedy.

“How are you doing?”

Lena licks her lips, mouth wet. “She’s getting better. Remembers things, people. Matching them up to emotional resonance thingamajigs, Angela says.”

He snorts, a rumbling _harumf_ through his wide nostrils. “I was asking about _you_.”

“I’m good

I’m better

I will be better.”

A dizzy-sweep of memory, syllables shutter-clicking across her tongue, like frozen stills from an old film reel, blurred into deception of motion. She’s not sure what she said, or which she said. Just knows whatever she’d said had been the wrong thing, only set Winston’s mouth grim, his shoulders square. He pushes his glasses up his nose, and she knows the lecture’s coming, already feels it slithering down her ears, so she sucks her smoothie, loud, cheeks hollowed, hoping to drown him out.

It doesn’t work.

“You’re still carrying the guilt,” he says, and why _shouldn’t_ she, why _can’t_ she?

Let it hang heavy in her chest, entangled with her accelerator. She can’t rewind that far, can’t affect the past— and now the only power she has is that of retold memory, honing it brittle-sharp in hopes of building future history.

She resolutely slurps her smoothie.

. . .

_xiii_

“Hungry?” Lena asks, jabbing her chin at the hot dog shop. There’s the smell of chopped onion and relish, sweet and savory in the air, plus the steam of sizzling sausage. Some American pop song blares from unseen speakers, bright and tinny.

Amélie scans the garish red and yellow sign. “Hot Dog International?” she reads, crinkling her nose.

Lena chuckles, bumping her head against Amélie’s shoulder. “Hey, live a little.”

Amélie rolls her eyes, indulgent, as they go to make their orders. Lena chooses a bacon-wrapped dog with barbecue, cheddar, and green onions, while Amélie lets out a long-suffering sigh as she orders the “French special, but hold the bechamel,” a hot dog broiled in a baguette and topped with Gruyere.

They pull up seats at a cheap red plastic table, rubber-tipped chairs squeaking against the ground. While Lena dives right into her food, elbows propped on the table, Amélie takes the extra effort of spreading a napkin across her lap first.

“Ooh, _swanky_ ,” Lena teases around a mouthful of sauce. A dab drips onto her chin, which she wipes off with the back of her hand.

Amélie dabs her own lips with a napkin, leaving a smear of blue-plum lipstick on the paper. Shifts so her knees bump Lena’s under the table. “Savage,” she says, the syllables twisted cool and strange, some delightful friction between how Amélie could read a bloody times table and make it sound erotic and how hard she must be restraining laughter, her knees clamped tight and her elbows tucked in. Lena knows this teasing fondness from true disgust because there’s a particular crinkle Amélie gets when she’s truly upset, but Amélie’s brow remains smooth.

Lena grins, licking onion from her teeth. “If you want to get dinner somewhere fancier, we can always stop at—”

Amélie interrupts her by reaching across the table, squeezing her elbow. “No, let’s go home, _ma cherie_.”

. . .

_iv_

“I’ll walk you home!” Lena chirps, and her hands are fizzing, crackling, could about explode with energy, so she jams them into the pockets of her jeans, bouncing on the balls of her feet and tossing a lopsided grin at Amélie. Spin, spin, keep moving, all flash and distraction from the way her heart smacks wet and heavy into her ribs.

Amélie chuckles, a small and dainty thing, all restraint and decorum— and why so small, why keep herself bundled in, why doesn’t she just laugh long and sweet like fizzy wine, why does she always act like she’s so much smaller than she _is_ — and says, “It will not be out of your way?”

“I’d walk through hell to get you home,” Lena says, and it’s too solemn, too close to that white-heat shock of truth, so she pastes her smile broad and tugs at her hair. “Nice night with a pretty lady, what else can a girl ask for?”

Amélie flips her hair back, a long ripple of silken motion, and smiles.

(And really, there are so many other things Lena could ask for— to know Amelie’s favorite song, her favorite color, what smells bring back childhood memories and what makes her eyes glitter like a spill of stars, like golden wine gleaming in the glass.)

Lena’s tongue snarls, cats’-cradle in her mouth as she talks. Anything, everything, words spinning tangential to her intent as she struggles to catch a thread, make a thread, sew her words into neat rows and stitch them together, like she might pull closer to Amelie. “So!” And Amelie is _married_ but that doesn’t stop up the words spilling out of her mouth, doesn’t clot up her voice. “Lovely stroll for an evening, right? My ex was absolutely in love with city walks at night. She said the moon makes everything romantic. Even garbage glitters under its light.” Trying-not-trying to watch Amelie’s reaction, tense for that pronoun, wonders if she catches it, the word tossed out like a rope into darkness.

Amelie catches it, grips firm. Teeth glinting white beneath the moon. “Sweet words for unlovely things. My girlfriends were never such poets.”

And Lena’s tongue corks up against the roof of her mouth, dry and full. ‘Girlfriends’ means so many things these days, and it could be a loss in translation, or it could be—

Amelie snorts, crossing her arms in front of her, back arched like a cat’s as she tilts her nose in the air, an exaggerated swagger. “You think I am straight.”

“I thought you were straight,” Lena repeats numbly, a white-cold flush of horror and god, god, god, she could melt down into her shoes, puddle into the pavement and drip away if she could, or skip back a few beats, a few moments, and she could have rephrased, reworded, redone this to be anything less mortifying than it already is.

“A not unreasonable assumption, but false,” Amelie says, relaxing her shoulders. A small smile, though her arms stay crossed. “And irrelevant, as Gerard and I are not polyamorous.” Her lips twist down, her walk slowing even as her strides lengthen, and Lena stumbles over her own feet in an effort to match the pace. “But yes, I am bisexual.”

“I'm sorry. You are…?”

“Bisexual.” Amelie purses her lips. “I am sure I said it correctly. The word is quite similar in both French and English.”

“No, I heard. I just—”

“I am invisible unless I say it, yes? And if I say ‘yes, I am bisexual,’ people create untrue assumptions about why I need to ‘advertise.’” Stepping sharper, faster. A furrow between those perfectly-arched brows, her nostrils flared. Eyes crinkled with the force of her disgust.

Lena untwists her tongue, swinging her hands as she skips to keep up with Amelie. Words stuttering off her lips in a rapid-fire rattle. “I’m sorry, I was an ass about that! Really! I don’t— look, I like you. Really like you. It’s been a rule for me, when I like someone, I come out quick. Fast. So if they’re not okay about me being gay, it’s easier to stop caring about them. Like ripping off a band-aid.”

“So. I am not a band-aid?”

“No, you’re— you’re a friend. I hope. Maybe.”

Amelie tilts her head, slowing down for a beat. “Perhaps. And I was sharp with you as well. My apologies. To new friendship?”

“To new friendship,” Lena says fervently, and the old blood-drum thrums in her ears, her head, the vertigo swoop of possibility because this is just one moment, the first of many, like beads on a string. Catch the light glittering and gold.

. . .

_ix_

Things old and new— the curve of her lip, the set of her jaw. The tattoos on her back and forearm. She’s fine, physically. Lean and strong, even that impossible length of glossy hair shining, healthy. Amélie is even learning new things, her knitting needles stiff and clumsy in her hands, the yarn puddled in her lap as patiently, Ana shows her again how to loop, how to pull, how to create patterns out of potential.

(And Lena doesn't remember her classics, but there’s some primal memory here, the three of them sitting in a circle of light, bright-dyed yarn between their hands. Amélie knits slow and steady, tongue between her teeth as Ana laughs, her needles flashing blue and silver, a constant click, push and pull. Lena can’t find what else to do with her hands, can’t stand redoing the tangled mess she made last time, so keeps her hands busy rolling a loose skein into a ball of yarn. Twist, pull, roll. Roll roll roll. Not as constructive, maybe, but still something useful. All three of them, creating. Shaping. Nothing but patience and time.)

Angela eventually shoos them out, argues the necessity of quarantine while she and her team undo the mental programming that Talon put Amélie through, but even she has difficulty arguing with Ana. There’s too much history stitched between them for a few sharp words to sever, so finally Angela throws her hands up and hisses past her teeth. “Fine! If anyone has a right to be here, I can’t argue it’s not you!”

Then she turns that piercing gaze on Lena (now Lena, not Tracer, because Lena knows she’s here as a friend, a confidant, not a hero or any sort of cavalry to the rescue) and crosses her arms. Raises a brow. “And you? I did not realize you two were so close.”

And Lena opens her mouth, and her stomach drops, and her vision swims, and the words break across her lips like waves, like tides, relentless and she is trapped beneath their swell. 

“I was

I am

I will be.”

All the words split by color, like white light through a prism, and she can't tell which is which, can't tell sight from sound from the warp of her own history told in spider-silk strands.

She's felt the world break, rip— but the past is fixed, beyond even her own loose tethering. If she detaches and goes back, she might be able to fix what came unravelled, try to stitch them together again. But she also remembers being an unmoored ghost, past and present all slipping by her, and knows it’s beyond her capacity.

Finally she swallows. Gulps down her grief, her impotent rage, the anxieties scuttling like spiders beneath her skin as Angela takes her by the elbow, steers her out. “I was the one who walked her home.” _Before they took her_.

“And I was the one who thought she _could_ go home.” _After they took her_. Angela’s gaze is soft, but no less sharp for all its mercy. “Lena, you’ll do yourself harm if you stay here. Rest.”

. . .

_xiv_

Lena locks the door as Amélie collapses bonelessly on the couch, head propped on the arm and her feet resting on the other side. Arm dramatically flung out, hand trailing to the floor. All the petty knick-knacks of their shared life strewn about, bright pops of color and group photos on the walls, stunning panoramic cityscapes from various tours of duty, and knitting catalogues and yarn in a wicker basket.

“Hey, make room,” Lena grumbles, kicking her shoes off. One hits the wall with a dull thud, landing upside down. She doesn’t feel remotely arsed to pick it up.

Amélie chuckles, patting her belly. Toes wiggling defiantly in her sleek leather boots. “There is room. You are small.”

“Nyah, nyah, nyah,” Lena mutters, sliding on top of Amélie. Her knee slots between Amélie’s legs, her hand sinking into the gap between cushions as she wriggles herself on top of Amélie. Presses her lips to the side of Amélie’s neck, her throat cool, throbbing, faint butterfly-pulse of life beneath the skin. Veins pale and blue, like ribbons under deep water. The chronal accelerator bumps between them, hard and rigid against her sternum, but it’s a small inconvenience, one almost forgotten between the layers of clothes and familiarity.

Amélie tugs the cap off Lena’s head, kissing edge of her scalp. “You are cute when you pretend to be grumpy.”

“Who says I’m pretending?” Lena pouts, nipping Amélie’s shoulder, the delicate point where flesh meets neck. Trails her tongue up the lines of tendon, tastes the alkaline sweetness of Amélie’s floral perfume. All lush roses and powder, an edge of bitter green.

. . .

_v_

Lena runs, runs. Runs until her breath stabs her lungs, until her ribs knit around pain, until her thighs turn lead and sodden with the weight of it. Until the tempo of her steps falls from a rapid-fire _your fault, your fault, your fault_ to a slower whisper, accusation in every echo. _It’s your fault. It’s your fault._ Momentum in motion, energy channeled up, out, all straight lines of movement and long curves as she turns the bend, as her feet pound the rubbery surface of the synthetic track, jarring through her bones.

The chronal accelerator hangs heavy on her chest, the links chafing her shoulders, the steel body slick with sweat. Still burns cold when she thinks about it, the weight of all she’s carrying.

 _It’s your fault, it’s your fault_.

She can’t rewind far enough, can’t change anyone’s past but her own.

. . .

_x_

Lena sits on the edge of Amélie’s bed, perched so she might spill off if she breathes wrong, if Amélie so much as twitches her foot. Send her tumbling, sprawling, all limbs agog and head still spinning, dizzy with regret.

Amélie knits, slow and steady. Breathing even. Eyes fixed on her stitches, the gentle repetition of hands, eyes, yarn.

Finally, Lena swallows. Thinks about the therapy she’s been to, is still going to. Thinks about survivor’s guilt and all the ways she’s still coming back to herself—

“I dunno if it helps, but. It’s kinda. Maybe. Not really.” She coughs into her hand, wipes her sweating palm against her trousers. “It’s not— not at all the same, really. But I know a little about carrying ghosts.”

Amélie snorts. Small and dainty, like a unicorn fart. “I carry the weight of what I have done. You carry only the weight of what you are.” Lena tries to catch her gaze, but Amélie’s eyes are hidden beneath her lashes, her face downcast. Pale and small inside her patient gown, stripped even of her perfume. The air between them is sterile, bitter with detergent and chemical cleansers. “Even if you reverse time, you always make the same decisions. You are always the hero.”

Lena runs her tongue over her lips, like she might catch her words in a dry-biscuit crumble. “Yeah, well— the world can always use more heroes.”

. . .

_xv_

“My hero,” Amélie murmurs, low and throaty.

Lena’s heart soars like a paper airplane, all her words burning, burning, like cinnamon and honey, like ozone and lift-off. “World’s always worth saving, love.”

Amélie chuckles, like she might disagree, but Lena smothers it with a kiss. Hard and hungry, tongue like a lick of flame. Carrying heat, skin, promise. Lips and teeth clicking together, their bodies exploring the boundaries between them.

(They both have scars, things that mark them old and new. Things acquired before entering Overwatch, before Angela’s nanotechnology could repair them to new, better than new. Some things that they chose not to heal. Lena wears her double helix earrings, has new barbells through her nipples, chill and silver in the low yellow light of their apartment. Amélie has a small white scar high at the edge of her scalp, almost lost beneath the hairline; remnant of a childhood accident, one laughing ‘little monkey’ jumping too close to the edge of the bed. There are more scars between them, hurts long-healed, barely more than ghosts on flesh. Tracer’s lived, relived, rewound, more injuries. They happened, then they unhappened, and her flesh bears no memory. Like ripples across a pond, now gone still.)

This is them, was always them— this emotional resonance, woven soft and subtle. The silk of Amélie’s hair through Lena’s fingers, the way Amélie unzips the front of her jacket, slides her palm (so cool, so sharp, nails biting crescents into Lena’s hip) over the bare line of skin between jeans and shirt, the way their boundaries blur, fade.

(This is a memory, will be a memory, has always been a memory. They will last.)


End file.
